Marching ever on with the Sketchbook Project, with Saving the World, with a brown micron pigma and a purple micron pigma. Parts 17 and 18; more to follow.
Incidentally, the polaroid that’s poking out of that box is a signed photo of me and my lifelong hero Ossie Ardiles, way back in 1994. My knees were going all trembly. (I signed a copy for him too)
Parts twelve to sixteen of saving the world (the sketchbook project); the book is now more than half full (or half empty). I needed a second intermission after returning from the UK so some stamps seemed appropriate. Saving stamps as it were. The dialogue is very loosely inspired by something my mate Tel said to me at school (that was about santa claus). Then I decided to draw from hereon in various colours: twelve is in brown micron pigma, there’s my acoustic guitar there look; thirteen is in – allez les bleus – blue, or chould I say cobalt (copic 0.1) and shows the bookcase.
Fourteen is the trusty purple micron again, been using that one for a while now. It’s the bathroom sink. Wash your hands. In this story I wonder if superman ever washed his hands, and if it made a difference to those he saved. Part fifteen is a copic 0.05, in ‘wine’, while the last one is a copic 0.1 in ‘olive’. That’s the recycling bin. I wanted to draw it before taking it out.
If you click on these admittedly smaller than necessary images, they will magically transport you to the world of flickr, where you can see them much much bigger (don’t worry, you won’t have to shrink first). The book continues; the due date is august 1st. Plenty of time.
I have at last gotten to see some of this thing you call football, in this thing you earth people call euro 2008. And wow, is Mystic Pete on good form! Predicting Germany and France to reach the final – before they both decided losing was their preferred tactic – stating categroically that Portugal would get knocked out in round 1 while the Swiss would go through – yes, probably not the best thing to bet on – the Czechs would qualify (got knocked out by the Turks today), the Dutch would be rolled over (completely the opposite), and the Austrians would be out before you can say Viennese whirl (nearly, but not there yet). Still, Mystic Pete is legendary for such predictions, but at least this year he is not alone – any look though a footy magazine pre-tournament will say the same (except for Portugal bit – but to be fair Mystic Pete did think they’d be rattled with all the talk of Ronaldo and the fact thier manager will be a big target for rich managerless clubs, like chelsea, or so MP tells me now, after the fact).
Turning into quite a good tournament, this Euro 2008.
it was a nice shake though, chocolate and peanut butter. But I couldn’t walk it off.
Went to see Indiana Jones* this afternoon (note to self: wearing shorts and t-shirt in a freezing air-conditioned movie theatre is not necessarily a good idea), and then since I was downtown and it wasn’t as roasting as I’d expected, I decided to draw. I didn’t have my little stool, and I didn’t want to sit on the floor, and was feeling less than inspired by things to draw downtown that didn’t involve sitting in the sun or on the sidewalk. So I found a shady bench on E street and drew a completely uniniteresting sight. With cars! I never draw cars.
Lots of graduating people out today, with their folks.
Now I think I’m tenacious in my sketching. I go out in all weather, just to get a drawing in the moleskine. Admittedly I live in Davis, so the weather is usually very changeable – one day it’s hot and sunny, next thing you know it’s hotter and sunnier, can’t keep up. Back in London it rained almost every day; on Monday I went back to the South Bank with 
Simon, where we sketched in sunshine a year previously. It was ok while we were under a tree, and the clouds merely threatened us like hoodies in a chicken-shop doorway – that’s when I did the pic to the left there, drawing someone with absolutely no resemblence to my sketching pal. But then we moved on, and I started to draw the banks of the Thames by Oxo Tower, but rain stopped play.
For me, anyway. Si sketched on, disregarding any silly rain, his sketchbook getting slowly drenched, now unable to erase any pencil marks. But he was on a roll, and did a fine pencil pic 
with lots of detail. I chickened out, and finished mine off later (the top image). It looks like it’s a monochrome, but I guess this is actually a colour picture, since that’s exactly how it looked that day. London was an exercise in greyscale waiting to happen (it sometimes is in the summer).
Prior to that, there was lunch in Shepherd’s Bush, at cafe rouge, and I did this sepia picture of the mirror while we ate. Not exactly the bar at the folies bergeres, more the cafe at the buisson des bergeres. Kinda.
Parts 10 and 11 of the Sketchbook Project, and I’m wondering if the world actually needs saving, I mean once someone sets themselves up as a saviour then we’re in all sorts of problems, aren’t we. Perhaps we then need saving from them? Or their followers, or their enemies?
And never ever trust a politician who runs their election on “only I can save you”. Over and out.
A sketching morning in Hampstead, with Si, starting at the tube station, wandering about the high Street and its alleys, then off to the Flask for a good pint of Deuchars. And it didn’t even rain!
The sketching day from the previous post actually began on the South Bank, the very crowded South Bank, full of half-termers, tourists and sidewalk entertainers (did I just say ‘sidewalk’? You know technically that makes me a tourist now, you know). Before the London Eye, nobody could care less about the South Bank, other than a place to come and have a quick snap of parliament, and its clocktower.
I used to come down on Saturdays when I was in my teens and draw this very view; most of the people down there in those days were homeless. I remember thinking, of Hungerford Bridge, why it was so stupid there was a shaky walkway on the east side (looking towards waterloo bridge) but not the west (looking towards parliament). Nowadays with those two spectacular modern bridges either side of the railway, you can get great views from wherever (plus the bridges now make that old one look like the rope bridge from Temple of Doom). I sketched the extravagant Whitehall Court from the west bridge, as rain clouds drew in.
The riverside entertainer below was drawn in a warm dark grey faber-castell pen, using a lighter grey brush pen to shade. I don’t normally shade like that so wanted to give it a go.
The funny feeling I got that day, looking out across the Thames, was that I was not really there, that I was looking though a window upon something very familiar, that it was a bit like a dream and soon I’d have to wake up and go to work. I used to cross Westminster Bridge six or more times a day, on the top of a tour bus, with microphone and rain jacket, my routine well-rehearsed, and now here I was, a tourist in my own back-yard. Well, a tourist with a sketchbook.
Sketched on a quiet corner of craven street, behind busy whitehall, the house where herman melville lived 150 years or so ago for like five minutes probably (had a whale of a time). It started raining while drawing this, so I ducked into a doorway, and then hightailed it to a nearby old pub, the ship and shovell, where I finished off the wash, washed down with some cold bavarian hofbrauhaus beer, served by a brazilian.
But this says London, doesn’t it. I think so.
(sketched may 29, micron pen)
A familiar skyline to all Burnt Oakers: Watling Avenue, in the rain, leading downhill towards the tube station. While most of the shops change over the years, the skyline of sloping chimneys has remained the same. Actually one shop that’s been there all my life is Vipin’s, the stationers where I bought my pens and paper growing up. It hasn’t changed a bit. (I do wish they’d stock Micron Pigmas though!)
This is my contribution for Drawing Day 2008. Micron Pigma .01. It’s also my Illustration Friday entry (theme: ‘forgotten’, because I felt like I’d almost forgotten what it was like in Burnt Oak, until I went back just recently and was quickly reminded; this skyline, however, will never be so quickly forgotten).
petescully 